1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to development projects, and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a method and system for quantitatively assessing risk and effectiveness of the development projects.
2. Background of the Invention
Most business processes can be measured in two ways, efficiency and effectiveness. These two measurements, however, are difficult to measure quantitatively. Traditionally, these two measurements have been performed in a qualitative manner, which includes a manager generally “feeling” that the business process is operating smoothly and that team members of the business process are working in a cohesive manner. The efficiency issue is addressed in the related applications identified hereinabove, but effectiveness, which is the ability for a service provider to meet a specification of acceptance of a customer, has eluded measurement for quantitative assessment.
During a requirements engagement or development project, a customer or client of a service provider is encouraged to recommend changes and to provide formal comments through use of a formal change proposal process. A change proposal is a request from a client to a service provider, or from the service provider itself, for amending or altering a process or product being developed for a client. The change proposal may be in the form of verbal, paper, or electronic communication. By having client feedback, a direct and continuous indication of the acceptance of the requirements specification is provided. The client feedback also provides a mechanism to assess risk that is introduced to the project when the expectations of the client have not been met, and a change proposal is to be adopted. As understood in the art, change proposals are submitted by review team members of the client that have responsibility to review and approve the requirements specification deliverables.
Each change proposal submitted for an element or artifact of a requirements engagement or specification has an obvious direct impact in that each change proposal may generate a unit of work by a member of the project team who implements the change to the specified artifact. Even if the change proposal does not generate a task to modify an artifact, at a minimum, a review of the artifact may be necessary. Additionally, each change proposal may have an indirect impact that is not readily obvious as the indirect impact may have a profound effect on project progress. Traditionally, measuring the indirect impact of a change proposal has been performed qualitatively in that the service provider only has been able to provide risk assessment to the client in a general, non-quantifiable manner. While the change proposals are useful in providing feedback for the service provider in terms of (i) risk and (ii) effectiveness, quantitatively assessing the risk and effectiveness for both the service provider and client is not performed as tools specifically designed for such an application previously have been unavailable.